KIDNAPPINGS CONTINUE

Five foreigners, including two Britons have been taken by a group of armed men from a nightclub in Port Harcourt in southern Nigeria on Sunday night.

It is the fifth kidnapping in the oil-rich Niger Delta in two weeks. State police have made no arrests.

In most cases, hostages are released unharmed, usually after a financial deal is struck, but analysts say the ransom payments fuel the violence.

On Monday, three Filipinos were released 10 days after being kidnapped.

A rise in attacks in recent months by militants, seeking more local control of the Niger Delta's rich oil resources, has cut Nigeria's oil production by 25%.

A British Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokesperson said they were in contact with the Nigerian authorities, and the companies the men work for will be in touch with their families.

Shooting

Reports say gunmen entered the Goodfellas bar in Port Harcourt popular with foreign oil workers and went around asking people their nationality and who was their employer. A barman said they took away five white people.

"They were shooting and everyone started screaming," driver George Ani told AP news agency.

"They took some expatriates but I don't know how many. I lay on the floor of my car until it was finished."

Blood stains were visible on the floor.

"The kidnappers ... burnt one of the vehicles they used, maybe to destroy anything that could give them out, and escaped through the waterway," a police spokeswoman in Port Harcourt told Reuters news agency.

A Briton is among four people being held hostage by extremists in Nigeria, according to local police.

The oil workers were kidnapped at gunpoint from a nightclub in the southern city of Port Harcourt.

A Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokeswoman said: "We are aware of the reports and are urgently looking into them."

George Ani, a driver in Port Harcourt, said he saw more than ten people go into the Goodfellas club and drag away a group of foreigners.

He said: "They were shooting and everyone started screaming. They took some expatriates but I don't know how many. I lay on the floor of my car until it was finished."

Mr Ani said the nightclub attackers were wearing military uniforms and did not cover their faces. He did not see anyone injured in the raid.

Foreign workers in Nigeria have had their movements severely restricted following a series of abductions in the country's oil-rich south-eastern delta over the last week.

Nigeria is Africa's largest crude oil producer, typically generating about 2.6 million barrels a day.

But militant attacks have cut production by more than 20 per cent since the start of the year.

Industry sources say hostage-taking has become an attractive business.

The Delta is awash with weapons, unemployment is high and communities feel aggrieved at the lack of development.

Armed groups have proliferated, often linked to local politicians.

The BBC's Alex Last in Nigeria says the money is often used to buy weapons and there are fears that the various often competing groups are trying to strengthen their positions ahead of elections early next year.

Release

The three Filipinos were freed on Monday and handed over to the Philippine embassy.

They had been working at the Nigeria Liquefied Natural Gas complex in Bonny.

There is no news on a German oil worker who was taken at the same time.

Last Wednesday, two Norwegians and two Ukrainians were seized from a ship offshore.

On Thursday, a Belgian and a Moroccan were abducted while travelling in a car.

Workers to be freed

Four foreign workers kidnapped from an oil services ship off the coast of Nigeria last week will be freed, Norway's NTB news agency said on Monday.

It quoted Norway's ambassador in Nigeria, Tore Nedreboe, as saying that a deal had been reached to release the two Norwegians and two Ukrainians, seized during a spate of abductions.

Camerounians assault Bakasi accuses Nigeria

WIDESPREAD discontent is pervading the Bakassi Peninsula, with Nigeria accusing Cameroun of violating part of the agreement, by forcefully taking over some villages ahead of today's handover. This is even as residents have vowed to resist any ejection, as Nigeria finally began pulling out her troops weekend.

"We have notified higher authorities (in Nigeria) about this violation of the UN-brokered agreement on the demilitarisation of the peninsula," a spokesman for the Nigerian Army, Brigadier General Felix Chukwuma, told journalists weekend.

"I am very positive that Nigeria would take this up at the appropriate level," he said.

Chukwuma was referring to the alleged takeover of several villages on the peninsula by Camerounian security agents before Nigeria formally hands over the territory to Cameroun on August 14.

Reporters touring the Bakassi ahead of the formal handover saw several Camerounian soldiers camped at the village of Ibekwe. Lieutenent Colonel Ibrahim Umar, the Nigerian commander of the Isaac Boro Military Camp, which controls the area, said the presence of the Camerounian soldiers was a breach of the accord between the two countries because the territory had yet to be formally relinquished to Yaounde.

"This is obviously an act of aggression and provocation on the part of the Camerounians. Nigeria will not take kindly to this insurgence," added Major Victor Digol, a senior military officer with the Joint Task Force on Bakassi.

"If the Camerounian authorities cannot call their soldiers to order, the UN and the international community have to wade into the matter because this is a gross breach of internal protocol," he said.

Only last week, a group of youth hoisted blue-and-white flags across the region and proclaimed the secession of a "Democratic Republic of Bakassi."

But with the pulling out of thousands of troops and the removal of Nigeria's flag in the region, everything appears set for today's final handover which also signposts the beginning of the next phase in the implementation of the pact signed under United Nations auspices in June that ensures the border area's peaceful transfer to Cameroun.

The troop withdrawal follows the signing of the Greentree Agreement in New York in June in whom Nigeria recognized Cameroun's sovereignty over the territory, in accordance with a ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in 2002, and agreed to withdraw its forces and administration.

The accord was the culmination of the work of the Cameroun-Nigeria Mixed Commission, set up by the UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan to peacefully resolve the Bakassi dispute and hailed as a dispute-resolution model for other conflicts in Africa.

The UN Office for West Africa (UNOWA) said in a statement issued in Dakar weekend, that the two countries would use the next meeting of the Cameroun-Nigeria Mixed Commission to discuss how to delineate their maritime boundary.

The secretary-General's special representative for West Africa, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, who described the troop withdrawal as "a very important step forward.," also told the UN News Centre that the leaders of several other countries in the region have informed him they would now like to use a similar model to resolve their border disputes.

Nigerian and Camerounian officials, in the presence of UN, French, German, US, British and African Union officials, will witness the exchange of documents that will legally seal the transfer of sovereignty.

Mr. Ould-Abdallah said the UN will have at least a dozen civilian observers in place to monitor the situation on the Bakassi Peninsula following the troop withdrawal and to "give reassurance" to locals that there will be no retribution or revenge taken against them. He said he was also confident that Cameroun and Nigeria would address the concerns of these locals who demonstrated last week about the recent changes.

Located on the Gulf of Guinea, the Bakassi Peninsula had been the subject of intense and sometimes violent disputes between the two countries for dozens of years when Cameroun referred the matter to the ICJ in 1994.

The International Court of Justice ruled in 2002 that Nigeria should turn over Bakassi, which has offshore oil deposits and is rich in fisheries to her eastern neighbour, Cameroun after a decade-long dispute that nearly brought the two to war in 1981.

Nigeria and Cameroun have since 1993 disputed ownership of the Bakassi peninsula, a 1,000-square-kilometre (400-square-mile) patch of Atlantic coastal swamp with access to coveted fishing grounds.

The dispute led to bloody clashes between troops of the two neighbouring countries stationed each side of the territory.

Yaounde dragged Abuja in 1994 to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at the Hague, which after years of legal wrangling ruled in favour of ceding the territory to Cameroun.

Nigeria rejected the ICJ ruling, saying that it did not take into account the interests of Nigerians living in Bakassi. The United Nations intervened and the two countries set up a UN-chaired joint commission to solve the crisis.

Nigerian President Obasanjo and his Camerounian counterpart Paul Biya on June 12 signed a deal under which Nigeria agreed to withdraw its troops from Bakassi "within 60 days" and hand over the territory to Cameroun.

Under the deal, signed in the presence of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, the islands of Atabong and Abana, which form the western part of Bakassi, will continue to be administered by Nigeria for two years after the withdrawal.

It also stipulates that Nigerians living in southern Bakassi will have up to two years to decide whether to remain Nigerian citizens living in Cameroun, to take Camerounian nationality or to return to Nigerian soil.

DAILY CHAMPION

According to the Nigerian Tribune...

Nigeria's ruling political party - the Peoples Democratic Party - is set to form a committee that will amend its constitution to create the position of president for life for the current President Olusegun Obasanjo.

Sources said the decision was reached during an all-night meeting involving President Olusegun Obasanjo, 18 People's Democratic Party (PDP) state governors, and some deputy governors held at his villa.

It was said that the secretary to the government of the federation, Uffort Ekaette, PDP national chairman, Dr Ahmadu Ali, the Jigawa state governor, Dr Saminu Turaki, were also in attendance at the meeting.

Apparently, two of the governors presented speeches which praised the president, and suggested the creation of a special place for him "hereafter".

The governors said Obasanjo, in this special position, would be a guide to the party, and would partake in crucial decision making matters that affected both the party and the government.

There is not yet any indication if the newly created post for Obasanjo has the support of the majority, but many believe that he needs to redeem his image after his failed third term and Interim National Government (ING) bid.

Obasanjo recently pushed for the creation of an interim government in Nigeria, citing the fact that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was not ready for the 2007 elections.

Fears that Obasanjo might want to hold on to power at any cost have only fuelled rumours of him pushing for an ING in Nigeria.

Obasanjo also recently submitted a proposal to the national assembly to have the constitution ammended making provision for a third term. The national assembly subsequently refused to ammend the constitution.